Lucky
by Rainmusic
Summary: An epilogue, of sorts. Ron is the only one who escapes the whole thing untouched.


Ron is the only one who escapes the whole thing untouched.

...

Harry, of course, has been routinely hunted, tortured, and tested since he was 11. To speak nothing of dying at 17. He's been the Boy-who-lived, the Chosen One, the last Horcrux, and finally, the Great Hero of the Second War. After the last battle, he's also rushed to the infirmary, because who knows what dying, reviving, and having a partial soul ripped out of you can do to a wizard? Harry is scanned and tested by every spell the mediwitches can think of for days before he is released to the general public again.

And thanks to the Daily Prophet's rumor mongering, whispers quickly spring up of his going mad. The next Dark Lord in ascension, they say; even the mediwitches stare at his scar as if it was still a tether to Voldemort's dark souvenir. Maybe we missed something, they say. Maybe 17 years with Voldemort in your soul has got to make one turn.

Harry's under surveillance everywhere he goes, not that it matters because he never wanders far from the graves that dot the border to the forbidden forest now. Lupin, Tonks, Fred, and countless others. He visits their graves and recites the names over and over. He takes meals in his room and scarcely says a word to anyone.

Ron tries to bring him out, one day. Not to the graves, but just a walk around the quidditch pitch; maybe for a bit of a fly, if he feels up to it. But even once on their brooms, the only thing on Harry's mind is the names of the dead. (Ron, is it really worth it? All those people dead, just so I could kill Voldemort?) And Ron has nothing to counter that.

...

Hermione makes it through the last battle mostly intact; but then again, that's the trouble. In the aftermath, she runs around like mad, repairing castle ramparts with the teachers, doing minor healing with the mediwitches, stealing moments in the library to research structural and shield spells. Ron is the one who catches her skipping meals.

(You haven't slept for days, he says. And you never eat more than a bite at dinner.)

But Hermione is a witch possessed. (The castle has to be safe, Ron! Can't you see? They've attacked the castle twice already, and even with Voldemort gone, who knows how many Death Eaters are roaming around?) She makes sense, of course, because she is Hermione. The Order is at their weakest right now, and the castle is practically defenseless after the last battle. With everyone focused on the sick and injured, now would be an opportune time to strike.

But she's wrong, too. Because Ron's a much better chess player, and he knows that if the Order's weakened, the Death Eaters must be as well. They've had some deserters already, stepping forward to the Ministry to claim Imperius. Some will have run, like Karakoff did in the last war; and a good number have got to be injured or dead. They're not the threat Hermione makes them out to be, and the Order's still conducting regular patrols.

Still, she works herself to the bone and only sleeps when forced. Hermione twitches and mutters and thrashes in her sleep, and the snatches of it he can catch are always about Malfoy Manor and Bellatrix Black. She screams and screams and wakes clutching the arm Bellatrix carved. It's a black mark on her otherwise pristine skin, because Bellatrix had used a cursed knife and even Fleur had a hell of a time trying to heal it at Shell Cottage after they first escaped. (Mudblood, the mark whispers. Mudblood. Mudblood. And it never shuts up)

Unlike Harry, Hermione refuses to name the dead. She visits the graves only once and shys away from the impromptu memorials that spring up all over Hogwarts. The worst one is on the fourth floor, where flowers and notes pile around the patch of swamp that Flitwick had left after Fred and George had...graduated, so to speak. It's become the de facto mourning site for all of the Hogwarts students that had fallen, and Ron avoids that one as well.

Hermione takes to wearing long sleeved sweaters and drinking dreamless sleep every night, and Ron can do nothing at all.

...

Ginny almost never leaves their mother's side. Molly is inconsolable, so Ginny makes tea and butters bread and holds her mother for hours on end-and, she hasn't smiled for days. Ginny was always the closest one to the twins. Bill and Charlie were old enough to be away for most of Ron and Ginny's childhoods, so they were more stories and heroes than actual brothers. Percy was always a right prat; and the twins always tested their schemes and soon-to-be products on him too much for Ron to ever seek them out, but not Ginny. Ginny was always following them around, poking her head in their room without fear of the explosions. To be sure, they shooed her off more times than not, but who else could have taught her to pick the lock on the broom shed and how to infuriate Percy by hiding his badges?

So Ginny takes care of their mother, takes care of George, takes care of Harry, and she cries when she thinks no one is looking. Ron sees her though, slipping away to Mertle's bathroom and he can hear her sobs through the door. More alarming, though, is hearing who she calls for. (Tom, Tom, she cries. How could you? Tom, please.)

There is no escaping it, of course. Ginny's probably the only other person in the world who's ever been possessed by Voldemort. But unlike Harry, she had him inside her head for months. She spilled her words and her secrets and her heart to Riddle's diary; she set the Basilisk around Hogwarts, she killed the chickens and opened the chamber-did all the things Tom told her to do. Ginny doesn't talk about it; so Ron forgets sometimes, that once upon a time, he and Harry had pulled her out of the Chamber bloodied and drained.

He tries and tries, but Ron can't remember a time when Ginny's ever called Voldemort anything other than _him._ Ginny never uses titles like He-who-must-not-be-named; and he's never heard her baldly say Voldemort either. Even years later, Ginny is carrying around a bit of Tom Riddle inside her, and Ron doesn't know how to fix his little sister.

...

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron has 3 deep scratches; some bruises from a couple of rough landings, and a bad case of magic exhaustion from firing spell after spell. In other words, nothing that a cup of soup and a night's sleep won't fix. In the aftermath of burying the bodies and healing the sick, Ron is arguably the most healthy wizard around.

And really, after 7 years of being Harry Potter's best friend, Ron's more untouched than he has any right to be. Hermione had to obliviate her family only to be tortured by the maddest witch in all of wizarding Britain; Ginny was best friends with the Dark-lord-to-be and almost had her life drained away; George is missing a twin and an ear; Bill only has about half a face left, and Fleur is worrying whether her baby will be born with fur; and Ron...Ron is unblemished. He hasn't got a scar anywhere on him; not since the ones from the Department of Mysteries disappeared under Madam Pomfrey's care.

He supposes he should consider himself lucky.

But Harry isn't speaking, and Hermione isn't eating, and Ginny isn't sleeping, and Ron really can't think a worst thing to be at this moment than lucky.


End file.
